Looks Like Fun, Doesn’t It? (It’s the Devil in Disguise)

What IS that thing? Is it a virtual reality booth? A virtual skydiving booth? A video game? It is, in essence, all three of those things, except that it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. That booth right there is a torture device for people with balance disorders, like myself. It is the bane of my existence. It is a torture rack straight out of the movie “Saw”. It is the machine that is supposed to be helping my brain, eyes, and ears communicate with one another properly.

First, you are strapped into a harness, much like the ones that people wear when skydiving, and then you step up into the booth and are attached to the two straps dangling from the booth’s ceiling. Next, you’re feet are strategically placed on metal footplates as you face a small television screen in the wall of the booth in front of you. Once you are placed in the perfect position, that’s when the real “fun” begins.

Now it’s the physical therapist’s turn to have a little bit of masochistic fun (I mean that in a humorous way, of course). On the computer screen to the right of the booth, the therapist begins an exercise where he or she chooses at what percentage the walls move (it ranges from 20% - 200%), the higher the number, the more the wall moves. The goal of the patient strapped into the torture chamber is to keep their little mini-me inside of a box in the center of the T.V screen. I am achieving an 80% success rate, but I am at the lowest setting possible: 20%. To the normal person’s eyes, it doesn’t even look like the wall is moving, but to me, IT’S MOVING.

After that little gem of an exercise it’s on to the footplate. Again, the physical therapist has the option of picking a difficulty level of 20% - 200%; and, again, I am at 20%. Both of these exercises are supposed to last 2 minutes or more, but because I haven been so ill and weak from lack of food, I have lasted, at the longest, 45 seconds.

The next exercise is having the footplate suddenly tilt forward or backward and my goal is to keep that blasted mini-me in the center box. That one I TOTALLY fail because I cannot even keep my balance on a flat surface that isn’t moving! I do slightly better when it tips forward, maybe it’s because of my big butt in the back that’s balancing me out or something, but I tend to handle that better than when it drops from under my heals.

The last exercise in this lovely little booth of wonders is having BOTH the wall and the footplate move at the same time. My therapist warned me that it would be like standing up during a 7.2 earthquake. Well, when that bad boy started shaking, I was gone! My therapist had to hold me to prevent me from falling out of the booth.

I know that none of this sounds the least bit difficult, let alone tiring; but by the time I am finished I am sweating up a storm and so tuckered out that I sometimes wonder if I’ll even make it to the car! Generally, on the days when I have physical therapy, I get home and completely pass out on the couch. I mean, we’re talking, dead-to-the-world, snoring, drooling, the whole nine yards.

Anyway, there’s a picture and a little explanation of what physical therapy is like for me.

A So-So, Kinda OK-ish Kind of Day (Update meets rant)

Today was one of those kinds of days where you don’t feel good, but you don’t feel horrible, you just feel kind of…BLAH. All day my symptoms, which seem to be stirring up much controversy between my different doctors, had ebbs and flows. What little I ate today (a couple of Saltines, a Pure Protein drink, Ginger Ale, and some potatoes—which is probably the most I have eaten in weeks) has, so far, managed to stay down. I had a little yakking (I’m using the least graphic word for the faint of heart and stomach) issue this morning, but managed to calm it down. I’ve had some pretty typical issues (swaying, falling backwards, tipping to the side) with my balance, that didn’t really change today, but the vertigo episodes were fairly minimal. My head, by and large, still had a lingering headache, but nothing like it was yesterday where I would have just preferred someone perform a decapitation (I’m not serious about decapitation, I’m using it metaphorically).

My frustration level, I have to say, has increased quite a bit, because it seems as though nobody can agree on a diagnosis for me. I am basically deteriorating right before their eyes, but everyone is pointing their fingers in different directions about the cause(s), the treatment, and so forth. I am basically functioning like an anorexic, NOT BY CHOICE, mind you, but because my stomach cannot seem to handle anything more than water and crackers. I mean, lets be real, I know that I need to lose weight, that’s a no brainer, but the WAY that I have been losing weight is not healthy. I almost feel like they are waiting for me to completely collapse before their very eyes before they actually will come to some kind of conclusion. I am not seeking this, in ANY WAY, as a method for the doctors to collaborate and come to a decision, but I just feel like a rubber ball being bounced around (and, in my condition, all that will get you is me upchucking into Ralph [my beloved barf bucket]).

I have embraced the fact that I have to use a cane to get around. It’s a better alternative than looking like a lush stumbling around because I can’t keep going in a straight line or ending up on the ground with a broken bone or bruises all over the place (and we all know how easily I bruise). I have maintained possession of the black cane from physical therapy; so it’s much more suitable to me, since black is a color so closely associated with my persona.

This has been an interesting journey, to say the least. Bouncing from doctor to doctor to doctor and back again has definitely built up my patience level, though I have always considered myself a very patient person anyway.

Physical therapy, while to the average person would be nothing, is a very difficult task for me, normally causing me to be knocked out for the rest of the day. I had therapy yesterday and was attached to a parachute harness and strapped into a booth where the therapist could make either the walls or the footplate or both move, leaving me the task of making a little mini-me stay inside a box in the middle of the screen. Sounds like no big deal, but when your brain is not communicating appropriately, it’s a lot more difficult than it sounds. When she had the booth AND the footplate moving at the same time…OHMAN, she was dead out of luck having me keep that mini-me in that box, it was just NOT happening! By the time I got home I had SUCH a headache and was so exhausted from the day, that I passed out on the couch shortly after 8pm (totally missing Adam Lambert singing on American Idol, which TOTALLY bummed me out), was led to bed mumbling incoherently all the way at 10pm, woke up for about ten minutes around 5:30am and then went back to bed and didn’t wake up until 10:15. I don’t think I have EVER slept that much in my entire life…well, okay, probably when I was a baby, but that doesn’t really count. That could have contributed to my symptoms being somewhat minimized today, but it’s hard to say. I guess I’ll have to wait until my next physical therapy appointment and see what happens the day after.

I attempted playing with my puppies today (okay, they’re not really puppies, they’re 5 and 7 years old), throwing Eden’s pet rock and ball for her and cuddling with Grace as much as she allows (she’s a silly strange animal…totally in her own little bubble). It was nice getting to do that, but it only lasted for about 30 minutes before the headache started and I came inside. Eden knows that Mama isn’t feeling very well; so she tends to kind of hang around me and just wants to be petted. She’ll have moments where all she wants is her rock or ball thrown, but most of the time she just sticks by me, like she KNOWS that I am ill. She’s very protective of me…she loves her Mama! AAAWWW!

I’m still having issues with my reading, though my eyes checked out fine (well, as fine as a “blind” persons eyes can be checked out as being). My speech is sometimes scatterbrained and muddled, me, the former Human Thesaurus, has lost—hopefully momentarily—her touch. The Neurologist, though, seems nonplussed by these symptoms, so we’ll see how this all ends up playing out. Hopefully, its that I wake up tomorrow morning or some morning in the NEAR future, with a spring in my step and not a sign of the illness I have been battling for 2 months (tomorrow is the 2 month mark).